Beatific Vision
by stefanie bean
Summary: The quest to find Walt has failed. As Hugo makes his lonely way back to the beach camp, he discovers that the Island is stranger than he imagined.
1. Tears at Midnight

**Chapter One: Tears at Midnight**

The trouble started on the evening they buried Libby. As Hugo dug her grave, Michael tried to enlist him to get his kidnapped son Walt back, but no way. Hugo was in no mood for stupid, pointless adventures.

With each shovelful of sandy earth, Hugo heard Libby's last word, over and over, whispered in two hoarse, blood-spattered syllables. "Michael."

Not Hurley, not Hugo. Michael.

What did that mean? Libby had died with a twisted face, desperately gasping for air which never came. Her wide-open eyes were fixed with such intensity over Hugo's shoulder that he turned around, expecting to see something there. This what what his Grandma Titi called "a bad death," one that you had to pray many rosaries to avoid.

Hugo had clung to her hand for a long time, until Kate gently unhooked Libby's poor dead fingers from his warm, living ones. In a voice so tender it started him crying all over again, Kate said, "Hurley, we have to wrap her up before she gets stiff."

Sad and reluctant, he let go, although at first he wouldn't allow anyone but Kate or himself to wrap her in the coarse wool Army blanket. When it came time to move her body onto a stretcher, Hugo grudgingly allowed Sawyer to help.

Not Jack, though. Wasn't there something Jack could have done? He was supposed to be this great surgeon, but maybe he sucked at surgery as much as he sucked at bedside manner. All he did was give Libby heroin.

Useless, everyone. Useless as Jack. Useless as Hugo himself.

Michael was just fine, though, despite his gunshot wound. He had stood there like a statue, watching everyone in the Swan Hatch with round haunted eyes.

Now Hugo stood tongue-tied at Libby's grave, sick to his stomach with anxiety. Shame, too, because thirty-some pairs of eyes stared at him, waiting for eloquence, for closure. They expected more than Hugo's few stammered sentences, proof to everyone that he had known virtually nothing about her.

Nothing except that he had almost thrown himself off a cliff, and then, because of her, he hadn't.

"She helped me," Hugo finally said. Incomplete, inadequate, but that was all he had. Then it was too late. It would always be too late, no matter what he said or remembered or did, because one clod hit the olive-colored shroud, then another, until her body was covered with pale brown dirt.

The funeral over, people headed back to their own fires, their own lives. Claire stood hand-in-hand with Charlie (_Here we go again, how long__'s it gonna__ last this time?_), while Sawyer and Kate softly talked out of earshot. Every so often Kate looked over at Hugo with an expression of pity.

Michael once again pestered him to go across the Island. The guy was obsessed, and Hugo knew obsession.

Hugo was ready to blow off Michael one more time, when a sudden, mad thirst for revenge swept over him. If he had a gun in his hand, and if their escaped prisoner Henry Gale stood there before him, Hugo would have killed him in an instant. He had never thought of himself as someone who could take down a man in cold blood, but on this night he wasn't so sure.

Maybe killing for vengeance was as sweet as some people said. People did it often enough, didn't they?

Still shaking with desire as cold as ice and painful as brain-freeze, Hugo turned to Michael at the grave-side and said in a tight emotionless voice, "I'm going with you." Never had he wanted anything so much as to stand face to face with Libby's killer.

* * *

But before the upcoming trek, Hugo had to get through the night.

Libby's tent stood at the tree-line, and as the sun went down, that was where Hugo headed. The rickety structure was already starting to lean from the wind. If you didn't tie those shelters up every day, they'd fall into a heap before you knew it. Even though Libby was never going to use this lean-to again, Hugo secured it snugly anyway.

Eyes watched Hugo as he worked under the tall, thin trees. Eight or so of the group which Sawyer called the "Girl Scout Camp" sat around their fires. They lived in the farthest recess of the beach camp, right up against the jungle's edge, and nobody paid much attention to them.

Any other evening, they'd have greeted Hugo and welcomed him into their circle, but tonight was different. Never before had they fallen silent when he came over to their neighborhood. They reserved that treatment for Charlie, or Locke, or Mr. Eko.

It must have been something in his face which kept them still and speechless, their only motion the ceaseless work of their hands. Some wove; some carved; some chopped with those long black obsidian knives which the men made.

Then Sirrah and her friend Chen left the Girl Scout camp fire and offered Hugo some fish stew, sweet Sirrah with her long cascade of black hair, Chen from Taiwan flush with his new mastery of English. Hugo waved them away, because the thought of food made him even sicker than he already felt. Sirrah gave a graceful little nod as she and Chen retreated.

When darkness fell, Hugo crawled inside Libby's shelter and lowered the tarp to hide himself from the Girl Scouts' sympathetic looks. Even before the tarp hit the sandy ground, his cheeks once again were wet with tears. Libby hadn't slept on a pallet or anything, just one blanket laid directly on the ground, and another to cover her.

He clutched the top blanket, pulling it tight to his body as if it had been Libby herself, and cried softly, not worrying about the Girl Scouts hearing him.

Everybody on the beach lived by the same rule. If the tent flap was closed, if the tarp was down, no matter what kinds of interesting noises came from within, you didn't hear it. What happened inside the tent stayed in the tent.

Libby's blanket smelled a little of her fresh scent, piney and a little salty. Then it hit him. Why had she gone all the way to the Swan Hatch to get blankets? Why walk an hour round-trip when there were two perfectly good ones here?

The first thing he'd thought of last night when she didn't return from the Hatch was that she had ditched him. It wouldn't have been the first time for a girl to do that. For what it was worth, she at least had gone to get blankets. Shredded by bullet holes, they had lain at her side in a pool of blood. Even so, going to the Hatch didn't make sense. Not that he'd ever get an explanation now.

Tears leaking unchecked, Hugo stared at the grey tarp ceiling, the thin fabric tethering him to earth, keeping him from spinning away on a trajectory of grief. There was so much he'd never know now, starting with why she even liked him in the first place, gross, fat, stupid as he was. Where he knew her from, and not just the Sydney terminal or the plane.

Had she been real at all? Had he hallucinated her, just like Dave, who had flung himself off the cliff into the surf, but had never left a body or any sign of its presence?

Hugo touched his mouth where Libby had kissed him not twice, as he'd asked, but just once.

Something inside Hugo broke like a dam. He had enough deaths on his conscience. Enough people had died because of him. No more, never again. Gunning down her murderer wouldn't bring her back. The desire to kill someone seeped out of him with his tears.

On the other side of the tarp wall, through most of that night, the Girl Scouts listened to his sobs like the final rasps of a dying person, and said nothing.

* * *

At the first light of dawn, Hugo crept out of Libby's tent for the last time. Clad in a thick cocoon of grief, he headed back to his own shelter to pack for what might be his final journey across the Island. He didn't care, though. Might as well get eaten by bears or torn by boars, as well as stay here.

As he walked past the food tent, Frogurt tried to say he was sorry. When Hugo gave him a look as blank and hard as a concrete wall, the smaller man scurried away, shaken. Kate handed Hugo a water bottle and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, but he brushed her off and moved on, not seeing the pain which crossed her face.

Jack was standing by the water tarp, fitting a pistol into the back of his pants. _What a stupid way to carry a gun_, Hugo thought. _One of these days somebody's gonna blow their ass off_. All he said to Jack was, "If we're gonna do this thing, let's do it."

(_continued_)


	2. The Shattering Sky

**Chapter Two: The Shattering Sky**

Jack and Michael, Sawyer and Kate walked all through that day and into the night, as Hugo lagged behind. He ate nothing, barely drank, spoke hardly at all. He also was pretty sure he was beginning to hallucinate. For one thing, there was that big bird which swooped over their group and called out his name. Of course nobody heard it but him. Typical.

Now other birds were talking to Hugo, too. Not that anyone else heard that, either. Flocks of rainbow-colored parrots passed by, showering broken bits of phrases like, "Don't worry," or "Chin up." Songbirds like blue jewels cheeped, "Watch out," saving him a collision with a thick branch.

It could have been worse. Some guys' voices yelled at the, or told them how stupid and worthless they were. That had never happened to Hugo, though. Even when he and his imaginary friend Dave had capered around the Santa Rosa hospital, Dave had always been open and friendly. Some of the guys at Santa Rosa, though, they heard bad stuff, and they suffered for it.

So while twitters from bright little songbirds weren't that bad, it still didn't make Hugo feel any better. Because he was still hallucinating.

Then, in a moment so horrible that even the birds fell silent, Michael admitted to Hugo what he had done to Libby. For a few seconds Hugo didn't care what happened to any of them. He hoped the Others would kill them all. Better than Hugo's cold manic rage of yesterday to return. Better than Hugo squeezing out Michael's last dying breath through a broken airway.

"That's it," Hugo said. "I'm going back to the beach."

He couldn't, Jack argued. The Others already knew they were coming. There was nothing to do but go on.

So, with a soul shot full of novocaine, Hugo followed the group as Michael led them into a narrow valley ringed on both sides with soaring emerald cliffs.

Up ahead, in a clearing surrounded by what the castaways called "feather trees," sat a mound of black-and-white speckled composition books. Not just lying on the ground, either. Instead, the notebooks were stuffed into what looked like plastic bank tubes, the kind you use when you go to the drive-up window.

While Jack, Sawyer, and Michael bickered over how far Michael had led them from the sea-coast, Hugo and Kate inspected the notebooks. Hugo didn't care where the coastline was anymore, because he couldn't have found it on his own anyway.

The men's voices rose in argument, Jack's hard and insistent, Sawyer's loud and blustering. At one point Sawyer reached for his gun. Kate grabbed his hand to stop him, while Hugo turned away. Just because he had lost the desire to throttle Michael didn't mean he was going to stop Sawyer from blowing Michael's head off. He just didn't want to watch.

Over at the tree line, the birds were really shrieking, and now their wild caws and screeches sounded like, _It's a trap, a trap. _

The argument reached a fever pitch. Jack called Michael a traitor; Sawyer bellowed that Sayid had already known this, and why couldn't Jack-ass just admit it. Kate snapped at both of them to put it back into their pants; this wasn't a pissing contest and what were they going to do about it now? Michael stammered excuses and then fell silent.

It wasn't their shouting which terrified Hugo, though. That he barely heard, because a tidal wave of sound washed over him, drowning out everything else. The overcast sky split down the middle like a torn sheet, and out of that great black rip poured forth a flood of deafening whispers. Then the black hole in the sky broke into thousands of fluttering crow-like things which flew about like bats. And, oh Mother of Mercy, each one had a tiny, scrunched-up human face.

Hugo tore his glance away from the shattering sky to the people around him, who moved in slow motion, like a video being played at half-speed. No one else seemed to see what had happened to the sky as Jack and Sawyer screamed and waved their arms about. Kate flung herself between the two men before they came to blows.

Suddenly, burlap-clad men and women burst out of the dense underbrush nearby. Jack yelled, "Run!" but it was too late. The Others poured out of their hiding places with rifles and worse. The attack had begun.

Darts whizzed through the air, and Kate shouted in pain as she fell convulsing to the short dry grass. Brown-clad people ran at them from all sides, like sleek beautiful animals loping across a savannah.

What drove Hugo to his knees, though, wasn't the Others, but a thick flock of black fluttering shapes which filled the sky. Hugo couldn't believe that everyone else still ran about and fought. Couldn't anyone else see that dense cloud, hear their frantic shrieks?

Apparently they couldn't. Then terror shook Hugo even harder as the black fluttering things cried out in an irresistible chorus. He pressed his hands over his ears and shouted, trying to drown out the overwhelming voices.

The Others picked up Kate, then chased after Sawyer and Jack, while above the clearing the black things continued to flutter. Hugo could swear that they fed off the Other's cold anger and everyone else's terror. The bat-shapes clustered around everyone except for him and a lean, brown-skinned woman in a dark grey head scarf, who stood unmoving and calm at the edge of the fight.

Even though the flapping black things left Hugo alone, their whispers rose louder and louder, until they formed clear words of pure torment.

_Elizabeth_, the whispers said. _Libby. Elizabeth_.

The harder Hugo pressed his hands against his ears, the louder and more distinct the voices became. "No," he moaned. No, this isn't happening." He crouched as low as he could, trying to bury his head in his arms. Screwing his eyes tight only made it worse, because then all the black figures came into focus sharper than before, and even behind his closed lids he could see the lime-green phosphorescent outlines of the trees.

A flock of birds took off from the glowing trees. From behind his screwed-shut lids, Hugo saw that they had faces, too, but of beautiful women with skin green as grass. Their eyes glittered fiercely, and their black hair streamed behind them as they dive-bombed the bat-things, chasing them away, into the distant forest tree-tops.

Hugo knew that if he opened his eyes to look across the valley he would see all this and more, and that he would not be able to bear it, because that would prove that he hadn't just popped one gear, he'd stripped them all. Better to hide behind closed lids, and tell himself that this wasnothing but brain chemicals. Just brain chemicals.

But he knew it wasn't.

He collapsed into the grass with a small whimper. The screaming had stopped, but he still heard faint whispers and fragments of the Others as they conferred with each other.

Everything fell silent when a low-pitched woman's voice rang above the rest. Oh, man, he was good as dead, for sure. They had killed everybody, and he was next.

He stiffened, waiting for the gunshot, the blow to the head, and prayed from the bottom of his heart. _Please, I'm sorry. For all of it, whatever it was. For __wanting to kill Michael. For__ hurting Ma. For yelling at Dad. __Everything__. Just don't let it hurt too much._

When a hand touched Hugo's shoulder, he gave a great shudder. No ax-blow came, though. Instead, he felt a gentle touch, like the shake a sister gives her small brother when he's having a nightmare. When Hugo didn't move or open his eyes, the light prodding came again, more insistent.

"Hugo," the low voice said, and this time he opened his eyes into the dark sculpted face of the kerchiefed woman who had stood so calm at the edge of the crowd. She gazed down on him with an unwavering expression of kindness. "Hugo, get up."

(_continued_)


	3. March to the Sea

**Chapter 3: March to the Sea**

The dark, lean woman with the stern face helped Hugo to his feet, and man, was she ever strong. For a second he thought of bolting, but she was almost as tall as he was, with long sprinter's legs. Anyway, he sucked at running, and she had his arm in an iron grip. Besides, he couldn't leave Jack, Kate, or Sawyer, limp as flour sacks on the rough grass.

Strong men hoisted Jack and the rest onto their shoulders and stood at attention, waiting for the tiniest signal from the stern woman. Michael stood useless and marooned at the edge of the throng. Once he glanced over at Hugo but turned away, unable to meet Hugo's eye.

While the cawing flocks still circled above, they wore ordinary bird-heads and beaks, not human ones. They veered off in one green mass towards the distant mountains, taking the strong, uncanny sense with them.

Hugo wavered a bit, about to swoon, and the woman haded him a weathered, round canteen. "Here, drink this." Behind her, one of the men shifted Sawyer from one shoulder to the next and said in an irritated voice, "Hey, Bea, we gettin' going or what? This guy weighs a ton."

The ice in Bea's voice cooled even the jungle heat itself. "We'll get going when I say we get going." She then turned back to Hugo and motioned for him to drink.

The canteen felt about half-full, so Hugo took only a few sips. "Drink up," Bea repeated. "Much as you want. We got a long walk, and I don't want you passing out on me."

So he raised the canteen and drank deeply. Weirdly, the canteen didn't empty, although it should have. The water kept coming cold and sweet, sharp and clear, the best he'd ever had on the Island. Bea encouraged him with her eyes until he couldn't drink any more. _T__hose round canteens __are deceptive_, Hugo told himself. _They __hold more than you think_.

Bea led the group, keeping a firm hold on Hugo's arm. When he fell behind, the Others streamed to one side or another around him like a school of fish. A few times he tried to talk to his captor, but she only gave him a faint shake of the head, _No_.

The path grew steeper, the surrounding landscape more stony. High winds blew away the overcast, and the sun beat down in its hot skyward rise. When Hugo started to sway again, Bea made him drink more of the crisp-clear water, but it didn't help. Green spots danced before his eyes and when he stumbled, she sank her fingers painfully into the soft flesh of his upper arm.

"Ow!" Hugo snapped. That was going to turn black and blue, for sure. Some of the Others looked back, and a few of them snickered.

"Keep going," Bea said in a low growl. "If you stop, I can't protect you."

"Man, I'm about to collapse."

"No, you're not," she said more gently. Then, more for the Others' benefit than his, she called out, "If you don't pick it up, Hugo, we're gonna taze you, and you won't like it. Then four of my boys are gonna have to carry you over the rocks, and they won't be gentle." The expression in her eyes said, _Come on, you can do it. Just do it_.

Hugo struggled up the last leg of that rocky hillside, sweating under the blazing afternoon sun. As they reached the final crest, he almost forgot his exhaustion. Before them loomed two huge upright stones topped by a flat one, forming a ten-foot-tall archway. Through its opening shone the wide blue sea.

"Dude, it's Stonehenge," Hugo said.

The Others carrying Kate, Jack, and Sawyer skirted around the stone portal as if avoiding it, then carefully edged their way down the steep, pebble-strewn path which led to the rocky shore. Splayed across an Other's shoulders, Kate started to stir and moan.

"Hurry up," Bea said. "We've still got to reach the dock and get them into position."

The Others picked up the pace, almost skidding on the gravely path. "We go too fast, we're goin' down on our asses," one Other grumbled as he staggered under Jack's weight. The man next to him, a burly muscular fellow almost as wide as Hugo, carried nothing but a rifle. He gave a rude laugh.

"I got an idea," the muscular man said. "Send Mikey down first. If he hits the skids, we know not to go that way."

That provoked another round of coarse laughter. A few of the men shoved Michael into the lead. "Yeah, Mikey," someone else called out. "The faster you go, the sooner you get your boy." He stretched out the last word into one long mocking syllable.

Bea and Hugo brought up the rear, which gave Hugo a little time to scope out the small village of yurts spread out beneath the rocky hill. A pair of armed Others stood at attention in front of a rusted metal door embedded in the hillside. As Hugo passed, he saw the Dharma Initiative logo spray-painted on its battered, sun-faded surface.

Before he had time to wonder about another Dharma station way out here, the men with rifles guarding the door shifted in tense expectation. Suddenly, a few loud metallic clanks rang out from behind the door. One of the guards jumped as if he'd heard a ghost, and aimed his rifle directly at the door itself. But it didn't open, and Bea gave Hugo a hard push from behind, hurrying him along.

At the base of the hill, about twenty or so Others busily worked around the yurt camp. The women wore the same hardened look as the men, as well as the same shabby brown and olive clothes. A few of the older men repaired fish nets, while the women strung fish on a line to dry, piercing each fish through the eyes like stringing beads on a necklace. The Others stared at Bea's group as they passed, then one by one, laid down their knives or nets or needles and joined the throng without even being told.

The Others reserved their hardest and most piercing stares for Hugo. He looked down at his heavy body self-consciously, but that wasn't it. They barely looked at Jack or Sawyer or Kate, and Michael they seemed to deliberately avoid, skirting around him as if they didn't even want to share the same path.

Their unkempt hair blew in their faces, and from beneath it their eyes shone out sharp and bright. One woman had eyes so blue they seemed to be made of the sea itself. An older man dark as Bea, gnarled and hard as driftwood, looked Hugo up and down as if seeing right through him. Then Hugo knew that whatever Michael had said about these people being "stupid hillbillies who ate dried fish," it was lies, all lies.

The Others weren't set apart by their rifles, or their yurts, or even their sharp, intelligent glances. What made them different was that they seemed to be made of the earth itself, as tough and strong as the stones which they walked over barefoot without effort or pain. The Others had told Jack, "This is our Island, and we just let you live on it." Now, seeing them in the bright sunlight, watching them move on the earth as if they were part of it themselves, it wasn't hard to believe.

What could any of them back at their own camp do against these people? Suddenly Hugo felt very tired, and the yurt village was already behind them. "So, this isn't where we're going?"

"I told you not to talk, Hugo," Bea said. At the same time her eyes signaled, _Look out there. Look ahead_.

"Oh, great," Hugo muttered. The group headed towards a narrow sea-coast path which wound its way between a high red-brown ridge on one side, and a steep drop to the rocky sea-shore below. Crumbly rocks covered the path itself, and even the nimble Others slipped more than once under the weight of their unconscious captives.

The higher they climbed, the narrower the path became. Bea had to let go of Hugo's arm, because there was no room for them to walk side-by-side. Instead, she placed her hands firmly on either side of his waist. "Keep your eyes on the back of the man in front of you. Don't look up or down."

Hugo did anyway, and wished he hadn't.

The sea crashed against the jagged shoreline, and the razor-sharp rocks below let Hugo know exactly what would happen if he made one slip. Mercifully the path widened, and soon they walked once more on sand, not loose pebbles. When they reached a small beach inlet surrounded by trees, never before had ground felt so good beneath Hugo's feet.

Over the still inlet waters of a quiet bay there stretched a long wooden pier.

Bea gestured to Hugo, _Go on_. Marching down the pier was like walking the plank in a pirate movie. The Others stopped at the farthest end of the dock, near a faded sign which read "Pala Ferry." Without ceremony, Bea's men dumped their half-conscious burdens. Jack and Sawyer were beginning to move around now, and Kate moaned again.

Bea shoved Hugo with a gesture that looked rougher than it felt. "I'm sorry, but I have to do this. Don't fight me." She tied his hands behind his back, then gently brushed the hair from his face before gagging him.

One by one, the Others pulled the bags off their prisoners' heads, and in no time at all they lay bound and helpless on the dock. Sawyer pulled himself into a half-sitting position, still weak. Kate lay unmoving with open eyes, while Jack crouched, face frozen.

The Others took Hugo from Bea's grasp, and forced the four of them to their knees, execution-style. Hugo saw his own fear in the tears streaming down Kate's face, in the hate blazing in Sawyer's. Jack looked down at the dock, so Hugo couldn't see his expression at all.

With his hands forced up high behind his back, his heart slamming against his ribs like a bass drum, Hugo struggled for breath. It would be just his luck to die of a coronary before the Others even got around to shooting him.

Everything swam before his eyes in a green haze again, so that he barely noticed the small fishing-boat which pulled up to the quay, hardly reacted when their former prisoner Henry Gale got out. Henry gave Hugo a cold stare, as if he was surprised to see him there.

Then the sky erupted.

(_continued_)


	4. Breaking of the Fellowship

**Chapter Four: The Breaking of the Fellowship**

Hugo had known a couple of guys at the Santa Rosa Institute whose senses were scrambled like eggs. One man saw musical notes dance in flashes of brilliant color. Another man said that one particular orderly's touch tasted bitter, like vomit.

The same thing happened to Hugo when the sky faded to bright white. It really wasn't, because the whistling colorless sky tasted like purple. And the high-pitched hum which raked his ears sounded like purple, too. For weeks afterward, whenever Hugo looked at the small violet flowers which bloomed on the succulent shore plants, or one of Rose's brightly-patterned shirts, he remembered what purple sounded like, and felt its rich, grape-like taste along his skin.

While it wasn't exactly fun to have his ears stabbed by plum-colored daggers of sound and light, at least this time everyone else saw and heard it too. Almost at once the strange sky changed back to normal. The pain in Hugo's ears vanished without even the tiniest hint of ringing. The Others shook their heads and pulled themselves together, then acted as if nothing had even happened.

Bea's glance never left Hugo, not even when Michael got traded for everyone else, not even when his lost son Walt stared out at the four bound people on their knees, his face cold and blank as if he had never seen them before in his life.

One of the Others dragged Hugo roughly to his feet, but Bea hissed to the man,"Step back." As the man retreated, Hugo swore he saw a look of fear cross the man's face. Steadying Hugo with her hand, Bea told him that he was to go back to his camp and tell everyone that they were to never come here, that Jack and Sawyer and Kate belonged to the Others now.

Hugo was to leave at once. When Bea gave a swift glare to a different Other, the man scurried to retrieve Hugo's pack.

"You're leaving us, Bea?" asked Henry Gale. He didn't sound sad about it.

Bea stuffed her canteen and some other items into Hugo's back pack, then took her sweet time to acknowledge Henry. "I did what you asked. Now it's on your head."

"You did more than I asked," and he clearly wasn't pleased about it. "I thought I requested Shephard, Austen, and Ford."

Bea gave the small, owl-eyed man a defiant stare.

"You and Mikhail, following instructions was never your strong suit, was it?"

"This settles it between us, Benjamin. You're on your own now."

Hugo wondered why she called Henry by that name.

"Don't worry, Sister Beatrice." Henry, or Benjamin, spit out her name with a mouthful of spite. "The pleasure of your absence will be all mine."

Bea turned to Hugo, as if surprised to see him still there. "Time to go, Hugo. Now, and fast."

Hugo stared over at the sea-side cliff path, which looked even steeper and narrower than before. "Bea, let me go with my friends. Please."

"That's not possible," she said, looking worried for the first time. Down on the dock, Henry stared at them impatiently, clearly wanting both of them gone. He conferred in hushed tones with one of the large men holding a rifle, who cocked it and pointed it in Bea and Hugo's direction.

Bea hissed, "I told you, Hugo, move. You can't be here any longer." When he still stood there, paralyzed with indecision, she put her hand on her head as if it would help her think faster. "OK, let's try this. Can you climb?"

"Uh..."

"You're going to have to. Come on, this way," and she led him to a faint trail which passed through thick vegetation. The path ran from the pier up the landward side of the hill, an alternative to the narrow sea-side path.

"What's this?"

"A short-cut. I think you can make it."

At least he didn't have to pretend to be a mountain goat again.

"Up is always easier than down," Bea added.

Hugo shook his head. Some kind of goofy Other slogan, no doubt. Good for pep talks, maybe, even though he didn't feel very pepped up right now.

The jungle climb turned out to not be too bad. They clambered up roots thick as rungs on a steady ladder, and in a short time found themselves at the top of the ridge. The yurt village glimmered down below, to the southeast. He and Bea stood on the same level as the great rock formation with the hole in it, as the afternoon sun shone through it like a magnifying glass.

Hugo turned to Bea. "What now?"

"Go back that way till you get to the jungle, right where we came out. Then go right back to your camp. In the jungle you'll have help, I promise. But if Benjamin catches us here, neither of us will be safe."

Hugo meant to turn and do as she asked, but for just one second he had to look back down at dock, where the captives and the Others still gathered.

"Hugo," Bea said again, warning in her voice.

"Please, they're my friends."

She just shook her head and said half to herself, "They better have brought my horse, that's all I can say." Almost like a prayer, she added, "Jacob, why must I suffer this fool?"

When Hugo winced, she said to him in a gentle voice, "Not you."

"Henry. Uh, Benjamin," he said.

"Yes. He's a complete fool." Then, with no warning, she yanked Hugo hard, hiding them both behind a cluster of boulders which crested the hilltop. Hugo peeked over the rock ridge and spied Jack, Sawyer, and Kate still kneeling on the dock. A woman Other grabbed Kate, and while it was hard to see what she did, the result was obvious. Kate slumped to the wooden dock and lay there. Then Jack fell, followed by Sawyer.

"What did they do?" Hugo asked, anger and fear rising now. "What did they do to them?"

Bea's firm look reminded him of his mom's when she went on one of her rampages. "Stay down and be quiet," she hissed, her voice low. "Hugo, listen to me. They're all right, just knocked out. For the trip."

"The trip where?"

"To where you can't go. Where you are never to go."

"How am I supposed to not go there, if I don't even know where it is?"

She just rested her face in her hands, looking sad and full of despair.

Out on the bay, the small boat which Michael and Walt taken wasn't heading out to sea at all on its bearing of 325, whatever that was. Now, strangely enough, it had turned around and was headed back to the dock.

When Bea saw the returning boat, she yanked hard on Hugo's arm, pulling them both to their feet. In genuine panic she pointed to the path into the jungle and said, "Now, you run that way." She then smacked him hard across the back, like a horse, before dashing on her way with long sprinter's strides.

Hugo ran too, flesh shaking, legs cramping, heart pounding in his chest. His pack bounced about and slapped his back almost as hard as Bea had. After a few moments he slowed to a jog, then a fast walk, breathing in huge ragged gasps. In the cool jungle shadows he bent over with his hands on his knees, sick from exhaustion.

Even in afternoon the jungle loomed ahead, dark and foreboding. Hugo knew that he couldn't go back to the yurt village, and that there was no way out but through. And Sister Beatrice, what was that about? Was she some kind of nun? And what was she talking about, when she said that he would have help?

No point wondering now, Hugo thought, as he plunged into a sea of green so deep that it was almost black.

(_continued_)


	5. In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle

**Chapter 5: In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle**

The jungle didn't look the same to Hugo as when he had traveled through it in the opposite direction. Kate had told him many a time that he couldn't track his way out of a paper bag, and even her light, laughing tone couldn't erase the sting.

What in the hell was he supposed to do now? He took another long drink from Bea's canteen, of water that went down like living ice. Since the sun was behind him, and it was late afternoon, that meant he was going east. Probably.

A large greenish bird cawed at Hugo, perched high on a thick-limbed tree branch. That bird again, the one which had called out his name, but hadn't crapped out any gold, to quote Sawyer. Not yet anyway. At least it didn't have a woman's face this time. From something small and furry it pulled long red strings with its pointed beak, slurping up the guts like spaghetti.

The bird's meal looked pretty unappetizing from where Hugo stood, but he looked inside his pack anyway. What little food they'd started out with the day before was long gone. Now that Hugo wasn't being chased or in immediate fear of his life, his stomach rumbled. No surprise, since he hadn't had anything to eat for almost three days, not since that morning right before Kate and Sawyer had told him Libby had been shot.

His pack felt heavier, bulkier than on the trip up, so he rummaged around inside. Hello, what was this? A shirt that wasn't his, green and brown tie-dye, very seventies, and from the musty smell hadn't been worn in a long time. Big enough, though. How often did that happen?

Hugo peeled the paper from a squashy parcel to find three plump fish, freshly gutted. Their pink, blunt bodies were so pale they might have been white. Some kind from the other side of the Island, maybe, as he'd never seen any like them before.

In another parcel, not so squashy, were three tough-skinned, dusty roots like potatoes, each the size of a softball. The last item was an old-fashioned wooden matchbox with just three matches in it, the package of a kind Hugo hadn't seen since he was a kid.

What a gift, because he had no desire to eat sushi or sleep in the dark.

He smiled, not because matches were amusing, but because of the tiny picture on the box cover: a huge-bellied shirtless guy with four arms and an elephant's head.

The eagle-like bird kept pulling off thin strips of red meat, occasionally fixing Hugo with its piercing dark eye.

Maybe the bird couldn't understand him, but it didn't hurt to try, even if it was a totally crazy thing to do. "Hey, bird," Hugo called out. "I'm sorry Michael tried to shoot you." He shuddered to think that if Jack had given Michael a loaded gun instead of one with no bullets in it, this beautiful creature would have been lying dead on the path.

The green bird dropped the skin and bones to the jungle floor, and rose in a graceful curve to another limb deeper into the jungle. Once again it cawed, and man, did that caw ever sound like his name, no matter how much Sawyer had scoffed.

It was as obvious as if the bird had spoken to Hugo directly. He was to follow it.

* * *

All through the remaining daylight hours Hugo tried to keep pace with his fluttering green guide. A few times he lost it, but the bird always circled back, leading him further on. When the falling sun left the understory deep in shadow, he called out, "I gotta make camp." The bird squawked a few times as if it understood, then disappeared into the rapidly approaching dark.

Just his luck, there was dead-fall everywhere. Hugo piled the wood into a tipi shape, just like Kate had showed him. Since he forgot to put a wad of tinder in the center, the first match blew out before it caught on anything.

He smacked his head and called himself an idiot. One down, two to go.

Hugo didn't often have to make fire, since there were always at least two or three perpetually burning at the beach. All you had to do was grab a stick, light it, and carry it to your own wood-pile. Kate or Sawyer had made the fires when they were out trekking.

As luck would have it, he was camped right by one of those trees with the dry, hairy bark which Kate favored for fire-starting. So, just as Kate would have done, Hugo scraped off a huge handful of tinder and stuffed it into the bottom of his wood pyramid. When he struck the second match, it fizzled almost at once.

Hugo stared at the third unlit match for a long time. In the deep twilight, the red ink lines of the fat elephant-figure seemed to dance. Eyes scrunched up hard, Hugo thought fiercely, _For the love of all that is good and holy_, _please don't let me screw this up_. Taking a deep breath, he held the match very close to the base of the tinder pile and struck.

The burst of flame licked his fingers. He pulled his hand back with a cry, dropping both matchstick and box into the fire.

When the blossom of blue heat leapt up, for a few seconds the red-ink figure on the burning box cover really did dance. In joyful abandon it flung itself about with belly shaking, arms waving, its elephant trunk swinging wildly.

Even after the matchbox collapsed into curls of black ash, the blue flame remained. At once the rest of the wood ignited, flaring up into a column of bright oranges, blues, and yellows. A few minutes later, the flame collapsed into the kind of glowing red coals perfect for roasting your dinner. The kind which normally took an hour to burn down.

"Dude," Hugo whispered. Kate was good, but she'd never built a fire like this.

He had planned to save one of the fish for breakfast, but he ended up eating them all anyway, then finished his meal with long draughts from Bea's canteen. No matter how much he drank, the water kept coming, and he no longer worried about emptying it.

It was crazy: here he was in the middle of nowhere with no idea where to go, no streams anywhere in the dry highland forest, who knows what lurked out there in the dark, and yet he felt good. Worried about Kate, about Jack and Sawyer, sure. Sad for Libby almost beyond bearing. And he felt sorry for Michael, too, because Hugo had seen the naked fear in Michael's eyes when Benjamin had led him to that small boat where Walt waited.

Staring into the fire, something about that little boat nagged Hugo. Of course. Michael could no more take that rusty tub out onto the open ocean than Hugo could run a marathon. So when Michael had turned around and headed back to the dock, that could mean only one thing. Michael wasn't leaving this Island any more than the rest of them. Maybe. Or maybe they had another way to get him off.

Was keeping silence the same as actually telling a lie? What if keeping silent was for the greater good? If he, Hugo, had anything to say about it, no one else was going to die for Michael's sake. When he got back to the beach, he wasn't going to say a word about the boat turning around. If he got back.

Anyway, maybe Michael and Walt had forgotten something and were coming back to get it, before heading out to sea for good. As far as Hugo was concerned, it wouldn't be a lie to say that Michael and Walt had left on a boat. Maybe they would send rescuers after all. It never hurt to have a little hope.

Wherever Michael was going, Hugo hoped he found what he was looking for.

He was suddenly very tired. The fire had plenty of wood; he was full as a tick from the fish, and the dry forest night was cool and breezy, not sodden. He pushed the potato-like roots deep into the ashes so that they'd bake overnight for breakfast. Curling up before the fire, his head pillowed on his backpack, Hugo fell asleep almost at once into a heavy, exhausted sleep without dreams.

* * *

The next morning dawned pale and overcast, with thin greyish clouds streaked across the sky. The fire had gone out. Hugo uncovered the roots, roasted to perfection and still warm from their bed of thick ash. They were meatier and not as mealy as baked potatoes, with rich golden flesh inside tough brown-baked skins.

Little birds chittered on the branches overhead, but in bird-language, not English. His guide of the evening before was nowhere to be seen.

That left him with no choice other than to navigate on his own. After covering the cold fire with dirt, Hugo headed towards the newly-risen sun. After a few hours of traveling steadily downhill, he heard water moving over stone. Kate had told him that if you get lost in the woods, just follow running water downstream, and sooner or later it would get to a beach. If there was a stream, he could fill his canteen if nothing else. Strangely, though, the canteen felt as it always had, about half-full.

A long cool drink revived Hugo a bit. He trudged alongside a stream bed which eventually trickled away to nothing but piles of moss-covered rocks. Down he went, always down, but eventually the dry stream-bed rocks vanished. Ropy vines hung down in every direction, and he could only see a few feet ahead in any direction. The thick canopy blocked even the noonday sun, although sparkles fell down here and there like tiny coins.

Hugo rested his haunches on a flat rock, and put his head in his hands. He was lost.

(_continued)_


	6. The Watcher in the Woods

**Chapter 6: The Watcher in the Woods**

A small but distinct noise rose out of the jungle. The hairs on Hugo's arms stood up, and he turned cold even in the afternoon jungle heat. The noise wasn't a growl, more like a sigh, but clearly not a person's. The noise came closer this time, along with leaf rustles and snapping twigs.

The smartest thing to do would be to run, but Hugo didn't. Instead, he parted the creeping vines like a curtain and there, in a bare patch between trees covered with twisting heart-leafed plants, he saw it.

A bear. A polar bear, in fact.

Hugo had heard the stories: how Sawyer on their second day on the Island had shot a polar bear which had attacked their small group of explorers, and how much he'd complained that no one would help him skin or dress it. He could of used a bear skin rug, Sawyer grumbled, but those lazy sons-of-bitches couldn't care less. Of course when Sawyer went back to get it later that day, the carcass was gone.

Or how another bear had chased Walt, only to run away when Walt stabbed it. The bears hadn't been seen in the jungle since, so people stopped talking about them. But no one forgot that there were bears on the Island.

This bear didn't growl or charge, and it wasn't that big, either, not like the ones Sawyer and Walt had described. Unless they exaggerated, of course, which wouldn't have surprised Hugo one bit. Walt was just a kid, and Sawyer was, well, Sawyer.

If this bear had stood on its hind legs, it would have matched Hugo in height. Its thick white fur had a pale blueish tinge, and sunlight glinted in its dark eyes sharp as stars.

The bear walked towards Hugo, giving him a long, slow look which froze him where he stood. It gave him a powerful nudge right at hip height with its muzzle, almost like Vincent when he wanted your attention. It then passed him and walked on ahead.

If it was a hallucination, it was a damn good one.

That nudge didn't make the bear unreal, though. Another supposed hallucination had heaved a coconut at Hugo a week earlier, and while the bruise on his stomach had faded, the memory of the pain remained. Real or not, the bear's gesture was unmistakable: _Follow me_.

So Hugo did, always at the bear's rear. The long thick fur on its business end made it impossible to tell its sex, but its graceful, almost serene movements and smaller size suggested it was female. Sometimes the bear turned around and gave Hugo another long piercing glance, and when he stopped to drink, the bear paused as well, its mouth narrowed into what almost looked like a smile.

When Hugo started to recognize the boulder-strewn landscape, he knew he was headed for the caves where Jack had once wanted them to all settle. Just a little detour to the west, and he'd be under the cold shower of the cave's waterfall before he knew it.

The bear turned around and gave a growl, but Hugo kept pushing towards the caves anyway, drawn by what, he didn't know. It was as if a sweet voice spoke to him, not one he actually heard, but one which came deep from inside. Its tones were tender and sympathetic. You wanted to lay your head on that voice's shoulder and give up all your struggles, to just let the voice take over and decide it all for you.

_Why go back to the beach at all? _the voice suggested._ Everyone you cared about there is gone, except for Claire, and she doesn't need you. She has Charlie to look after her now._

Hugo shook his head hard, trying to toss off those soft, insinuating tones the way Vincent shook off water, but the voice went on. Claire had Locke, too, if she wanted. Sooner or later Charlie and Locke would start punching each other out over her, and if Hugo went back, he'd get dragged right into the middle of it.

And Hugo really needed to think about what kind of position he was in, the voice reasoned. How was he going to explain that the whole trip had been a stunning failure, that he'd lost the camp's doctor, the biggest contributors to beach life, and probably for good.

Everyone would look at him with pity and contempt, because even the Others hadn't wanted him. _They'll blame you_, the voice said. More people would head out into the jungle to stage yet another failed rescue. They would die, and that would be on Hugo's head, too. Hadn't he done enough? Hadn't he hurt enough people?

_You had the right idea last week_ _when you told Libby you were going to run off to the caves and live alon__e, _said the voice.

That made Hugo's eyes sting with tears, because the voice spoke Libby's name in a way so ripe with tenderness, so full of love, that he almost couldn't bear it. The voice understood everything, it seemed. How forlorn Hugo had felt, how lonely. How nobody at the beach would understand, even if Hugo did tell everyone the truth, as Bea had instructed.

_And who's __Sister Beatrice__ anyway?_ the voice protested. _Just some crazy woman, a liar like the rest of the Others. __Anyway, w__ho appreciates you at the beach camp? No one needs you down there. But up here, ah, up here, I need you_.

The voice was right. Screw the beach camp. Hugo didn't even notice that the bear had disappeared from the path ahead of him. All he could think of now were the caves, the coolness of the water in their pool, their dark recesses, the sweet relief of not having to face confused faces and incessant questions. Not even the thought of the two dried-out bodies sleeping in their cleft bothered him.

He pushed aside long creepers that gripped him like tentacles, almost as if they wanted to block his path. Swearing a little, he shoved them aside even harder, thinking of nothing but reaching the caves and their compelling, seductive voice.

Directly in his path stood the bear, a massive silver-white tank. It lowered its head and snarled, baring long white teeth which ended in points so sharp they were almost invisible. Its gums were blue-black as its eyes, which had lost their kind expression and were narrowed now in anger.

"Holy crap," Hugo said. He backed away slowly, then retreated the way he'd come, towards the east, away from the caves.

He fought the urge to run until he could no longer hear the bear's breathing behind him. Then he bolted, running faster than he ever had in his life. At any second he expected to feel the bear's teeth in his back, or claws that would rake his back to shreds.

Soon it became clear that nothing chased him. Except for the sweet, melodic songbirds, the jungle was silent.

Hugo sunk to his knees, panting like a locomotive. He looked in all directions, but the bear was nowhere to be seen. With a resigned sigh he plodded further east, the late afternoon sun at his back now, his round broad shadow stretched out before him.

The terrain grew once more. He'd arrived at the Swan Hatch's back door, and flushed hot with shame as he passed the spot where he had hidden Dharma food stolen from the Hatch's pantry. Then he forgot about his embarrassment, for the Swan Station was gone, leaving only a deep pit strewn with debris.

"What the hell?" Hugo said out loud as he plopped heavily onto a fallen log. Above him the green-crossed sunlight rained down in a glittering shower onto the jungle below.

Out of the shadowed forest, silent as a huge cat, glided the bear. For a second Hugo thought of running again, but the bear's movements were slow and gentle, and he was too exhausted to move. He sat immobile as the creature rested its heavy head on his thigh.

For a wild moment Hugo thought that not only the Swan Hatch but maybe the camp at the beach had been flattened as well, that he would trudge back to heaps of broken sticks and fractured, tarp-covered bodies. That was nuts, to go to the caves. If the beach camp was flattened, they were going to need help.

The soft, insinuating voice dissolved like a barely-remembered bad dream. Hugo laid his own great head on the bear's, and plunged his hands into the soft fur around its neck, as if the bear's snarling, near-charge had never happened. Its fur was cool even in the warm afternoon, and he rested for what felt like a long time.

What stirred Hugo to keep going was the anxious vision of the beach camp in ruins, the people crushed. Some of the old doubt came back, leading him to say, "What's the use?"

The bear gave his face a little lick, just as Vincent would have. It was a gesture so warm, so friendly, that Hugo patted its head as he would have Vincent's, although down in the bear's blue-black eyes there swirled a wildness Vincent's eyes had never held.

Again the bear licked Hugo along the round curve of his neckline, to where the sweat gathered.

"You like the salt, huh?"

In answer the bear rose and skirted gracefully along the edge of the pit. Hugo struggled to follow it, but the bear with an unmistakable gesture shook its head, _Good-bye_.

It didn't seem possible that something so white, so large as the bear could literally melt into the greenery and disappear to nothingness, but it did.

Time to head back to the beach and do what he needed to. Hugo heard a rustling in the bushes ahead of him, but didn't think anything of it. It was probably his bear-friend, circling back to check on him, keep him heading in the right direction.

Man, it was hot now, the worst part of the day, when thick humidity hung over the jungle like a living cloud. There was no breeze, and the western sun stalled in the sky like it was never going to set.

The rustling continued. Hugo told himself that it was just the bear again, and that he might as well have a drink. He fumbled for Bea's canteen, ignoring the approaching sounds.

Just as he raised the canteen to his mouth, something split the air with a sharp whoosh. A swift-flying knife imbedded itself in the canteen, shivering as if it met some huge resistance. It should have gone right through the canvas and into Hugo's face, but instead, water just squirted everywhere.

"Dude," Hugo exclaimed, as John Locke and Charlie Pace noisily thrust their way through the bushes towards him.

* * *

Something else weird happened that day, too, because Bea's canteen was never the same. The air must have been let out of it or something, because at once it shrank up and deflated, its olive and red stripes fading to the color of dead leaves. On his way back to the beach camp, Hugo tossed it away like old fruit peelings.

Just another afternoon on Mystery Island.

(_the end_)


End file.
